A small camping stove is all you need for hiking
As far as I am concerned, there are two kinds of camping stoves to select from: single-burner camping stoves or multiple-burner camp stoves.
Single-burner stoves are more suited to the lone camper on an overnight camp or backpacking trip, where small size and light weight are the prime consideration.
Multiple-burner camp stoves have two or more burners, and are better suited to camping situations where size and weight are less important. This includes any camping where you will be in the one place for several days or longer, and usually where you don’t have to hump your own equipment in a backpack for miles at a time.
A single-burner camping stove is perfect for brewing up a cup of coffee, tea or drinking chocolate, or heating up a packet of dehydrated food for a quick carbohydrate hit while miles from any real nutritious, wholesome food on one burner — especially when you’re in a hurry.
A two or three burner stove does allow you to cook meat on one cooking ring and vegetables on the other, or pasta and sauce. So a multi burner stove is much more suited to cooking for a group or a family.
The most common types of fuel for camp stoves are:
Propane gas stoves: use bottles of liquefied gas. The smaller one-burner stoves use disposable canisters of propane or butane gas. These are lightweight but a bit expensive. The larger versions have rechargeable gas bottles that can be refilled at camping supply stores or at most gas station where you buy the petrol for your car.
Kerosene camping stoves: usually have a hand-operated pressure pump. They need to be pre-heated or else the kero won’t even burn, so most campers carry a small bottle of alcohol (meths) or a solid fuel tablet to get it started safely. (In case you’re confused here, Kerosene fuel is called paraffin in Great Britain.) Kero is a slightly messy to use, but comparatively safe and quite cheap to run. The fuel is easy to obtain.
Petrol camping stoves: mostly have a hand pressure pump. You pump up the air pressure at the top of the tank, and the gasoline fuel is forced out through a tiny pin hole. Early petrol stoves did without the pump. You just heated the tank in your hands, and the warmed air in the top of the tank expanded and pushed the fuel out of a pinhole sized hole. Again, you needed to pre-heat the stove to avoid a sooty flame. Some campers use a fuel jelly for this, though the previous mentioned substances work fine as well. You can’t use just any old petrol (that’s gas to you in the USA to run these petrol stoves. You should use Shellite or ‘white gas’ which you can buy from a camping supply store. In an emergency when nothing else is available, you can get away with unleaded petrol (gas) which is normal fuel for most modern cars today. But don’t use the wrong fuel for extended periods. It is bad for the stove, and will clog it up with soot and other gunk.
Alcohol camping stoves: are my personal favorite, and the best-quality ones are made by Trangia. The alcohol fuel is called Methylated Spirits in the U.K. or just ‘metho’ here in Australia. Its big advantage is that you can buy the fuel for it just about anywhere.